Stockmarket

[Claudio]

Greetings, ancient lurker here.

I just came upon the cliché stockmarket idea. You know, we had a (very basic) one in the BattleTech: Crescent Hawks' Inception game, and I thought "Hey, that would be cool to have in greater detail".

Is this possible/fun/feasible to code as a game mechanic? Maybe the plots themselves could change the stock trends: Spinner XXX is waging war, so the allied Aegis military stock gets a high, and the spinner's commercial industries get a tragic blow.

Anyway, just brainstorming a bit. Must go back to work.

[Fideach]

I could see a stockmarket working; as long as the PC can't influcence it too greatly, it would still be a gamble and risky.
Be kinda nice to add the fact if you don't too perfect in one mission, your stock in one company will plumet and you'll lose money since you fail to protect the companies assets when Luna attacked.
Could be set up so when you joined the company, you have the option of being paid in stock, or cash, or both.
Would be nice to be able to Negotiate pay too while were at it, on any freelance contract ^.^

[JohnnyDmonic]

Hmmm, it should be possible to do.  It'd basically be a never-ending plot that stores a variable for each stock, randomizes changes to the stock value on a timer, and stores another variable for amount of money the pc has invested.  Also a seperate timer for the the actual interest payout.  The payout timer should reset whenever the PC adds money, to prevent gaming the system by dumping cash in just before dawn or whatever.  Basically just a matter of creating an NPC/storefront for it, setting variables for each stock, and a variable for PCStocks for each one, a timer to randomly raise/lower stock values, dailog options for the NPC to allow purchasing stock, and that's it.  It might be possible to have it be influenced by other storyline's win/loss count.  That smarter heads would have to consider, I'm not sure if one can check a specific factions win/loss variable from outside the storyline itself.

[Fideach]

Could just skip keeping track of it, and just have certian missions\plot tied into the vaule of the stock, that are random, or part of the corp missions..
For instance, BioCorp, gives you 50 stock, to do this mission. you do it, you get the stock.. no change in stock price, since it was a common mission.
Later, BioCorp has a mission that is critical, since if it fails, they don't get that new factory in Town X. So they could email you, or you could find out about it in the news.. and if you take it, and succeed well.. factory is built in Town X, it sets off a trigger the shoots up the price of the stock after said mission, it runs on its own timer.
So after said mission, price of stock is up, since you saved BioCorp money, and they got to build that new factory and you have a certain amount of time before the variable on the stock price is reset, that you can take advantage of and sell the stock for a profit above normal.
Of course, if you fail, or ignore that mission, stock goes down for a while, or it is ignored since you did nothing and price of stock stays with in normal variables.

[JohnnyDmonic]

Well, the issue is, writing one new file that takes 30 minutes, or modifying the original 50 plot files with new content that has to be tested to make sure it doesn't break anything in the original.  I reworked the original plot files for a mod I'm working on once.  Just changing the formating of all of the e-mail blocks took most of a day.

[macksting]

Of course, one could also add in a feature which is a part of the Shopping skill, or a Talent one could purchase, where your character rolls skill dice every now and then and either makes or loses money with random modifiers. The skill roll would represent the character's ability to track the market. Large events could effect all stocks, like BioCorp's troubles in GH1, forcing a roll with large modifiers.
This would be distinct from any longterm plotlines as you describe.

But that's just me being silly, trying to think of ways to make more cash for my character.

[Fideach]

Quoting: JohnnyDmonic

Well, the issue is, writing one new file that takes 30 minutes, or modifying the original 50 plot files with new content that has to be tested to make sure it doesn't break anything in the original.  I reworked the original plot files for a mod I'm working on once.  Just changing the formating of all of the e-mail blocks took most of a day.

Would you really have to modify all of them? When only the "big" missions affect stock price? so so couldn't you add or edit one or two to affect the stock market price? and test it out that way. No need to modify all of them, as the "common" plots\missions wouldn't have no affect on stock prices, as they are part of every day life to say.

Quoting: macksting

Of course, one could also add in a feature which is a part of the Shopping skill, or a Talent one could purchase, where your character rolls skill dice every now and then and either makes or loses money with random modifiers. The skill roll would represent the character's ability to track the market. Large events could effect all stocks, like BioCorp's troubles in GH1, forcing a roll with large modifiers.
This would be distinct from any longterm plotlines as you describe.

nice idea, but may as well just make it a gambling talent and add gambling to the game.

[macksting]

You could do both, and the gambling talent would simply have higher modifiers.
And not require a talent.

...which, if you could gamble at tables, you could probably work stocks at computer stations and shops.
But then again, you'd want to bail out some stocks with that skill and talent, basically the talent representing the ability to buy, sell, and get money while you're on the go without constantly monitoring. Intuition plus skill, really.

[Joseph Hewitt]

There is a stock market of sorts in Emerald Spinner, but this would be a much more detailed system. Ideally, it could be added in such a way as to not require modifying everything else- it could maybe make use of the FacWin and FacLoss triggers to keep track of how different factions are doing.

[Anticheese]

What happens when players acquire large ammounts of stock? AFAIK Real stock works by you buying a (very small) portion of a company which means the odd cheque for a fraction of a percent of their profits or a say in the way the company is run..

Having a gaurenteed income source would be nice as well as being privy to the latest and greatest developments by a corp. I'm sure they would be a bit more generous with their experemental R&D to a big investor...

Now if you don't mind I'm off to buy stock in Biocorp.

[Varil]

Wouldn't it be easiest to only rerandomize stock when the player actually checks it, with a quick check for when it was last looked at to avoid abuse? Essentially, check for lastRandomized whenever the stock market is called upon, and rerandomize with the appropriate modifiers(stock market up or stock market down) whenever it is checked and a certain variable of time has passed. Randomize the time some to make it less predictable. Randomizes anywhere from once an hour to once a day.

The randomizer could be a simple add anything up to X or subtract anything down to X, with a baseline dependent on the overall quality of the corporation, which would be dependent upon the success of missions and the like. A small-time corp might vary from 20-30 credits per share, do a mission and succeed and it goes up to say 25-35 credits per share, whilst a big guy like Biocorp might be 225-250 per share, with a mission bringing it up to 226-252 per share. A single mission might be life-or-death for a small corp, but even a single mission performed by a spinner-reknown mecha warrior wouldn't significantly impact the value of the corp.

[Fideach]

Quoting: Varil

Wouldn't it be easiest to only rerandomize stock when the player actually checks it, with a quick check for when it was last looked at to avoid abuse? Essentially, check for lastRandomized whenever the stock market is called upon, and rerandomize with the appropriate modifiers(stock market up or stock market down) whenever it is checked and a certain variable of time has passed. Randomize the time some to make it less predictable. Randomizes anywhere from once an hour to once a day.

This could work out nicely, as a easy way to set it up as an added flavor to the game. Could make it so stock aren't worth much credit wise, but the more you have, the more access you have to faction tech that your not a member of even.

Quoting: Varil

A single mission might be life-or-death for a small corp, but even a single mission performed by a spinner-reknown mecha warrior wouldn't significantly impact the value of the corp.

A single mission might be the life-or-death of a small corp, but a single mission could impact the vaule of the large corp majorly. For instance; lets say BioCorp invests trillions of dollars to build a factory in the deadzone,  and then the Ravagers attack the site.. and its your mission to stop them. Now, if you fail at that, that could set back the company alot. Due to lost production compacity, research, personnel, and don't too mention they are out of the money invested into it. So they have less capital to work with.
And since they fail in that, due to you not completing the mission in stopping the Ravagers from destroying there new factory... the CEO, board members loose the trust of stock holders, etc.. they start selling off stock, and the price of stock goes down.
Now though, common missions that you would run several times a day.. wouldn't have no affect, since they are just routine things, like guarding a normal convoy or patroling said location.

[macksting]

Wait, the factory project can be shut down by a single mission?
Holy carp, get me in on this.

[Fideach]

Quoting: macksting

Wait, the factory project can be shut down by a single mission?
Holy carp, get me in on this.

Well if the mission involved you protecting the factory, and you fail.. and it gets so destroyed they would have to rebuild it and find and convince people to work there... then yeah, it could shut the project down. Guess it just depends on how badly you fail at it.

[JohnnyDmonic]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

FacWin and FacLoss triggers to keep track of how different factions are doing.

Right, that's what I was trying to think of.  Yay for the programmer.

Quoting: Varil

Wouldn't it be easiest to only rerandomize stock when the player actually checks it,

Not really, the Quarter/Half/Hour/Day timers are pretty easy to work with, and there is a problem with randomizing when the player checks:
Namely players (me) intentionally gaming that and repeatedly rechecking/saving then selling at a profit.  You could set a timer flag to offset that, but at that point you've already set a timer flag, might as well let it run.